President Bush did not say "Mission Accomplished" on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln off San Diego on 1 May five years ago. But the banner above him did.
And the picture of those two words said more than the 1,829 words of his speech.
What the president said, among a lot of other things, was: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country."
But the message from the banner said it simpler - mission accomplished. It was all over.
It wasn't. Guerrilla war followed, and this has produced more US casualties than the "major combat operations" did.
The phrase "mission accomplished" has lost that distinctive military ring of finality that it once had. It has become an irony.
Still no 'mission accomplished'
President Bush did not say "Mission Accomplished" on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln off San Diego on 1 May five years ago. But the banner above him did.
And the picture of those two words said more than the 1,829 words of his speech.
What the president said, among a lot of other things, was: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country."
But the message from the banner said it simpler - mission accomplished. It was all over.
It wasn't. Guerrilla war followed, and this has produced more US casualties than the "major combat operations" did.
The phrase "mission accomplished" has lost that distinctive military ring of finality that it once had. It has become an irony.
